IoT refers to the Internet of Things. IoT devices may be various kinds of information sensors and controllers or various kinds of smart home appliances. The IoT devices access the Internet in a variety of ways to form an immense network, thereby realizing extension of the Internet from people to things.
Among IoT access methods, a Wi-Fi IoT access method has the widest application, the lowest cost, and the best scalability. A Wi-Fi IoT device usually accesses a network directly via a Wi-Fi access point (also referred to as a Wi-Fi hotspot or a wireless router).
Currently, many home or commercial Wi-Fi IoT devices have emerged on the market. These IoT devices are mostly controlled via an application on a mobile terminal such as a mobile phone or a pad, which, however, is not so convenient sometimes. For example, prevalent Wi-Fi IoT lighting devices on the market usually use a mobile terminal application interface to control their on/off and tune their brightness/color tone, equipped with a traditional mechanical switch for simple control of on/off and brightness. As a consequence, control by the application interface is complex and inconvenient, while the traditional mechanical switch is inflexible to control and difficult to lay out wires. In most situations, a wiring-free position-flexible field control of a lighting device is more attractive to users than a remote control by a mobile terminal (controlled by a mobile phone application).
In response to the above needs on wireless lighting control, some wiring-free wirelessly remotely controlled lighting switch devices have been available on the market. These wiring-free wirelessly remotely controlled lighting switch devices perform a simple on/off control to a lighting device using a private communication method at a non-standard frequency band (e.g., 1 GHz, 315 MHz, etc.) in a non-standard mode, but do not support a control by a mobile phone application. Moreover, because such devices work on a non-public frequency band, mutual interference with signals from other systems likely occur, affecting user experience.
It is provided in the Wi-Fi Standard Protocol that manufacturers and suppliers may define a vendor specific information element according to application needs. Different types of control information may be defined based on different types of control interfaces (capacitive touch keys, touch screens, etc.) of wiring-free Wi-Fi IoT lighting switches, thereby enabling control of a Wi-Fi IoT lighting device, either in a simple fashion or in a fine and complex fashion.
If a manufacturer does not follow the Wi-Fi Standard Protocol, it may restructure a packet payload or modify an MAC-layer protocol stack to thereby load control information.
The above two loading approaches are uniformly referred to as a private information structure.
A Wi-Fi IoT device is generally controlled based on a Wi-Fi connection. For a Wi-Fi IoT device such as the wiring-free Wi-Fi IoT lighting switch which has a rather long control information generation period, if a connection control communication mode is adopted, the Wi-Fi connection with the Wi-Fi IoT lighting device has to be re-established almost for each time of control, which will consume most of energy on control frames. For a wiring-free IoT lighting switch that is primarily powered by a battery, a Wi-Fi connection-based control mode will significantly reduce battery life.